Mysterious Rumbles Throughout Italy Solved
There have been mysterious rumbles that were thought to be coming from strange activity deep beneath the ground in Italy. It seems that the rumbles have been traced to a rather more mundane source, the machinery in cement factories.
Scientists have been baffled by a series of tremors which have been detected by Italy’s extensive network of seismic sensors in recent years. Researchers had recently attributed the vibrations to movements of magma bubbling near the surface of the Earth’s crust, despite them occurring in areas that did not have any volcanic activity.
Geologists have detected 342 tremors with epicenters within 492 feet of a cement plant in Ghigiano, Umbria which is in northern Italy. This is a location that is not volcanically active. Yet this area was being hist with mysterious rumbles.
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Now the geologists believe that they have found more of a concrete answer for the different seismic activity that the country has been feeling. They believe that it has been the country’s extensive network of cement factories. Italy is one of the largest producers of cement in Europe and has at least 57 full cycle plants with a dozen more processing plants. Researchers now believe that these enormous factories could be responsible for producing the vibrations which have spread across almost half of the country.
Geologists have calculated that each factory can shake the surrounding countryside up to 18 miles away. Researchers at the National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcananology in Italy said that thousands of tremors, or micro-earthquakes, are recorded very year in Italy. Yet their finding are suggesting that many of those are not natural.
In each cement plant there are several machines which are capable of inducing tremors through the ground. Each machinery involve strong vibrations and some of them are installed underground the minimize the outdoor effect which is possibly increasing the coupling to the ground below.
Seeing as how Italy sits on the boundary where the Eurasian continental plate meets the African continental plate this makes Italy one of the most seismically active regions in the Mediterranean. The Adriatic Plate, which is just a small tectonic plate, formed around the boot of Italy between 140 and 70 million years ago; thus resulting in many of the active volcanoes that are lining the country.
For years scientists have been unable to explain thousands of low frequency tremors that were occurring in parts of the country where there should be little or no activity. In 2008, Geologists attempted to explain this as vibrations coming from magma filled cracks in the upper crust.
